Does anyone out there know the work of Indiana writer and farm wife Rachel Peden? I came across her by accident, and some of her books, out of print for a while, have recently been re-issued in paperback. I’ll bet our library used to carry her work before they started tossing out everything published before the 21st century.
Purple ironweed is diminishing in the pastures; thistles are down to their last silken tassels; goldenrod pours its heap of raw gold into the general fund.
—Rachel Peden
A necklace of summer flowers strung for me by my daughter. I post this sketch of them today in honor of Queen Lili’uokalani (1838-1917), the last queen of Hawaii, whose birthday it is today. In progress/more to come.
Pat
Laina
A painting and a poem for Sunday.
—Alfred, Lord Tennyson
July is the season of botanical abundance, in the garden, in the fields, and along the roadside. My daughter chose these wildflowers for our botany drawing today.
Kathy
Colen
A May bouquet from my sketchbook.
Ellen, a poet herself, shares a birthday with Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882) so it seemed appropriate to post this poem for the two of them today. Except that Ellen is actually At The North.
To Ellen, At The South
The green grass is growing,
The morning wind is in it,
‘Tis a tune worth the knowing,
Though it change every minute.
‘Tis a tune of the spring,
Every year plays it over,
To the robin on the wing,
To the pausing lover.
O’er ten thousand thousand acres
Goes light the nimble zephyr,
The flowers, tiny feet of shakers,
Worship him ever.
Hark to the winning sound!
They summon thee, dearest, Saying;
“We have drest for thee the ground,
Nor yet thou appearest.
“O hasten, ‘tis our time,
Ere yet the red summer
Scorch our delicate prime,
Loved of bee, the tawny hummer.
“O pride of thy race!
Sad in sooth it were to ours,
If our brief tribe miss thy face,—
We pour New England flowers.
“Fairest! choose the fairest members
Of our lithe society;
June’s glories and September’s
Show our love and piety.
“Thou shalt command us all,
April’s cowslip, summer’s clover
To the gentian in the fall,
Blue-eyed pet of blue-eyed lover.
“O come, then, quickly come,
We are budding, we are blowing,
And the wind which we perfume
Sings a tune that’s worth thy knowing.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson
Ellen
(Maybe by this time next year I can find one for Jeannie.)
Jean
This sketch is from a Mothers Day hike at Carderock a couple of years ago, and I’m posting it as an excuse to tell you Washingtonians about another hike entirely, on Saturday, May 22nd, sponsored by the Audubon Naturalist Society. Melanie Choukas-Bradley and Tina Brown (respectively, author and illustrator of Sugarloaf: The Mountain’s History, Geology and Natural Lore) will lead a hike at Sugarloaf Mountain while simultaneously discussing the botany, wildlife, geology, and history of the area. (They must have better lungs than I do!) At the lunch break, Tina Brown will give a nature-sketching demonstration, so carry your sketchbooks.
Some of you may have attended Melanie Choukas-Bradley’s wonderful Earth Day talk about the botanical highlights of the Washington area, which was entertainingly intertwined with local history and biography. If you didn’t make it to the talk, you can look for her book, City of Trees. (It’s not often I can find three of my favorite subjects in ONE book.)
You can find more details about the hike at the Audubon website.
Three years ago my daughter and I bought three little strawberry plants at a school fair. Each year they have multiplied, and now we have about fifteen pots full of plants on our tiny rooftop deck. This spring we are drawing them at their different stages of development for our Botany block, and the process, from bud to fruit, is pretty fascinating. The strawberries are terrific. Unfortunately this year a squirrel has discovered them and visits often. What’s so annoying is that he (she?) doesn’t simply eat an entire strawberry, but takes large bites out of several and then wanders off. One day I caught him trying to BURY one as if it were a nut.
Flowers, and a poem, for Mothers Day.
The Lanyard
The other day I was ricocheting slowly
off the blue walls of this room,
moving as if underwater from typewriter to piano,
from bookshelf to an envelope lying on the floor,
when I found myself in the L section of the dictionary
where my eyes fell upon the word lanyard.
No cookie nibbled by a French novelist
could send one into the past more suddenly—
a past where I sat at a workbench at a camp
by a deep Adirondack lake
learning how to braid long thin plastic strips
into a lanyard, a gift for my mother.
I had never seen anyone use a lanyard
or wear one, if that’s what you did with them,
but that did not keep me from crossing
strand over strand again and again
until I had made a boxy
red and white lanyard for my mother.
She gave me life and milk from her breasts,
and I gave her a lanyard.
She nursed me in many a sickroom,
lifted spoons of medicine to my lips,
laid cold face-cloths on my forehead,
and then led me out into the airy light
and taught me to walk and swim,
and I, in turn, presented her with a lanyard.
Here are thousands of meals, she said,
and here is clothing and a good education.
And here is your lanyard, I replied,
which I made with a little help from a counselor.
Here is a breathing body and a beating heart,
strong legs, bones and teeth,
and two clear eyes to read the world, she whispered,
and here, I said, is the lanyard I made at camp.
And here, I wish to say to her now,
is a smaller gift—not the worn truth
that you can never repay your mother,
but the rueful admission that when she took
the two-tone lanyard from my hand,
I was as sure as a boy could be
that this useless, worthless thing I wove
out of boredom would be enough to make us even.
—Billy Collins
This is a work in progress, part of a series of paintings I am working on whenever I have a chance (not too often lately) based on Washington National Cathedral, a place I have loved to visit, draw, and paint since I was a teenager. I put it up today in honor of the Cathedral’s annual Flower Mart, a festival taking place even as I post. Each year a different part of the world is featured, in food, music, and dance—this year it’s the Ukraine—and there are flowers and crafts for sale, and a small, very old and beautiful carousel (the first my children ever rode). I wish I were there instead of sitting here working! Maybe this afternoon, if my fairy godmother arrives.
Here are the lovely grounds of the neighborhood Marriott Wardman Park hotel before they cut down most of the trees. Sigh. My daughter was skipping along, filling a basket with fallen blossoms.
Come, lovely May, with blossoms
And boughs of tender green,
And lead me over the meadows
Where cowslips first were seen.
For now I long to welcome
The radiant flowers of spring,
And through the wild woods wander,
And hear the sweet birds sing.
—Traditional
